Here’s a piece I wrote at Sierra Nelson’s workshop at the December Write-O-Rama at Hugo House, Seattle:

Where can you find a bell that will ring in your dreams? – Pablo Neruda

See, that’s funny, because it happened to me just the other night. I was dreaming about winter, snow and cold and trying to find some place or some thing or somebody warm.

In the dream I found the sleeve of your wool overcoat as you stood and talked to someone else. I held it as tightly as I could so it would take a long time to let go.

Then a bell rang and it distracted us both and then I let go and then I was falling through the snowy sky.

That bell was my phone ringing. It was you, the last call you made before you died.

I missed it, because I was sleeping.